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Critics Slam Corporate Press' Late Coverage of Israel’s Controversial ‘Hannibal Directive’

Despite confirmation from multiple sources, journalists who exposed this policy 11 months ago were often labeled 'antisemitic'

Published: September 9, 2024
  |   By Adrian Norman
Critics Slam Corporate Press' Late Coverage of Israel’s Controversial ‘Hannibal Directive’

Independent media outlets are denouncing corporate press organizations for their delayed coverage of Israel's controversial “Hannibal Directive.”


This policy, created in 1986 in response to the kidnapping of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, is aimed at preventing the capture of soldiers by enemy forces, even if it endangers the soldier’s life.


The Hannibal Directive authorizes the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to take extreme measures, including lethal force, to prevent captured soldiers from being used as leverage in negotiations.


Yehuda Shaul, a former IDF commander and platoon sergeant, explained the directive starkly: “We prefer a dead soldier to a prisoner.” He further elaborated, saying that if Hezbollah were to abduct a soldier, forces would be instructed to hit the vehicle — even if it meant “knowing you’ll kill your friend. You’ll do it, no question.”


Despite Israeli officials denying this doctrine, the IDF invoked it in 2014 during the war on Gaza, according to leaked military audio recordings. Shaul explained that the directive was shared with him and other commanders orally. “I’ve never seen any written text of the rules of engagement,” he said.

This weekend, ABC News reported that the Hannibal Directive may have also been employed during the deadly Oct. 7 attack last year. This would suggest that an untold number of military and civilian deaths might be attributed to IDF actions rather than Hamas.


Among the most shocking revelations is that IDF commanders allegedly ordered troops to fire on fellow soldiers captured by Hamas, specifically citing the Hannibal Directive.


The ABC News report also included a podcast interview with former Israeli Air Force Colonel Nof Erez, who described the scale of the operation: “This was a mass Hannibal. It was tons and tons of openings in the fence, and thousands of people in every type of vehicle, some with hostages and some without.”


He detailed how Israeli fighter helicopters fired vast amounts of ammunition, including Hellfire missiles and 30-millimeter cannon mortars, during the assault, stating, “The frequency of fire at the thousands of terrorists was enormous at the start, and only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their attacks and carefully choose the targets.”


Investigative journalist Ronen Bergman’s findings, also cited by ABC News, revealed that the IDF destroyed 70 vehicles to prevent them from being driven into Gaza, resulting in the deaths of everyone inside. “The IDF instructed all its fighting units in practice to follow the 'Hannibal Directive', although without clearly mentioning this explicit name,” Bergman said. “It is not clear at this point how many of the abductees were killed due to the activation of this [Hannibal] order on October 7.”



ABC News also uncovered instances where tanks and helicopters were ordered to fire on homes, despite the knowledge that civilians were being held hostage inside.


Independent journalists have criticized corporate outlets for only now reporting on these incidents.


Writer and political analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa responded to the ABC News story in a post on X: “Yet another investigative report reveals how Israel’s implemented the ‘Hannibal Directive’ on Oct. 7, in which Israeli forces killed Israeli civilians while responding to Hamas’s attack. Many were called ‘antisemitic’ for even suggesting this occurred.”



Podcast host and political commentator Robert Durden echoed this sentiment, writing, “If you reported this 11 months ago, you were smeared relentlessly or even threatened. Now even Israeli MSM is reporting it. This is how it always goes.”



Afshin Rattansi, an independent journalist, also weighed in, criticizing the corporate press for its delayed coverage:


After an entire year of smearing everyone who first reported on Israel’s use of the Hannibal Directive on October 7th as anti-Semites…Mainstream media is now covering what we knew all along; the IDF killed Israelis en masse on October 7th to prevent them from being taken to Gaza to be used in hostage negotiations for the release of the thousands of Palestinian hostages in Israeli jails.





Rattansi’s official television network, Going Underground, added:


Mainstream media in NATO countries thought you were stupid enough to believe that Hamas, the militia of an open-air concentration camp with nothing but light arms, caused this level of destruction on October 7th.


Now, mainstream media, a year after independent media outlets reported it, have learned about the Hannibal Directive and only now report that Israeli helicopter gunships unloaded their bullets and rockets on anything that moved in a mass application of the directive to prevent Israelis being taken hostage by Hamas, who would then be used in hostage negotiations to free the thousands of Palestinian prisoners.





Mark Seddon, Director of the Centre for United Nations Studies at the University of Buckingham, expressed his frustration, stating, “The uncomfortable truth is that very many in the media either knew this had happened or had heard it had happened at the time, but chose not to say anything that might upset the apple cart.”


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